Inane Chatter

You want to know how to make my blood boil?  Close a help desk ticket of mine without resolving it.  I don’t care what company it is, what the service is that you’re supposed to be providing me, or how big or small the issue I reported was.  If you haven’t resolved it or are still waiting to get some information from me, DON’T CLOSE THE TICKET.  Morons.

Have some pretty to end your day.  These are our anniversary flowers.

I don’t mean to turn this into a look-at-the-funny-pictures-on-the-internet kind of blog, but sometimes I can’t help myself.  That’s been happening a lot.  Besides, it still counts as inane.  No false advertising here.

(From reddit, where I have been spending too much time.)

I will eventually get back to using words in my blog posts, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen tonight.  Have some comics instead.

I didn’t see that coming. Comic from here.

You’ve got to go to the page this came from to see the ideas he rejected.  I like the first three.

The Bloggess recently discovered Doctor Who.  She pinned this…

…on her Pinterest page.  It came from here and here, and since I’m not caught up (and I’m putting off being caught up because who wants to wait a year?), I’m not looking too closely at those.

But I’m SO happy she’s hooked.  I’m a new convert, and I want to convert EVERYBODY ELSE.  Because that’s how it works.

There was something I was going to write about, something John said or did, but I don’t remember what it is.  I had a very frustrating day that went straight into an online midterm review.  That went pretty well.  I feel better about the exam, at least.  So instead of whatever it was I was thinking about earlier, you can have these instead.

1. Look!  An adorable baby goat playing king of the mountain and being adorable!

And 2.  This (from reddit) makes me laugh every time I look at it.

I think I need to see Madagascar.  Jungle animals doing hilarious things sounds really appealing at the moment.

When it’s sunny.  I like the color of the sky.  And the leaves.  And we’ve had so much rain that the grass is still green everywhere.  I should take a picture.

Taken from my car window on the way home from work. I could crop the road out, but you get the idea.

Enough with the pretty – prepare for meanness ahead.

Here’s a tip you’ve heard a million times, but it’s important: If you want a job, PROOFREAD YOUR RESUME.  I read a pretty bad one recently.  If you’re not very good with that sort of thing, find a friend who is.  I don’t have high expectations for this person because she apparently can’t punctuate her way out of kindergarten.  Oh, let’s be generous.  Elementary school.  Also, she listed “Blackberry (Curve)” as one of her skills.  I don’t even know what that means.  Maybe she can program for that platform?  Impressive!  Then say so.  She’s not a programmer, though, unless she REALLY doesn’t know how to present herself in her resume, so I’m assuming she means she knows how to use a Blackberry.  That’s not a skill.  My 6-year-old niece can find her way around a smart phone.

I’m not trying to say that I punctuate everything correctly all the time.  (For instance, is it resume, resumé, or résumé?  Does the accent depend on something or are there just multiple acceptable forms?)  I do, however, tailor my writing style to my audience, and my resumé (I like this one best) is flawless.  (I know.  Arrogant, much?)  It might not get me hired, but it won’t get me dismissed out of hand.  Grammar is important, people!

/rant

Now, watch me post this with some hugely embarrassing typo I didn’t notice.

My brain left.  Packed a suitcase.  Bought a train ticket.  Said goodbye to the dogs.  Walked out the door.  (Sounds like a country song.)  I have been completely useless all day.

Want to see the cutest puppy paw ever?

Side A

Side B: Teddy bear paw!

This is what happens when my brain skips town.  I go through my camera and look for cute pictures.  I can’t even complete this thought.  Going to the gym.  Might clear my head.  My empty head.  If you’ve seen my brain, please give me a call.  I’d like it back.

Hmmph.  That title didn’t come out the way I meant it.  Anyway, here is a picture of the wall of books in the dining room (that used to be the family room) with all of the books lined up at the front of the shelves.

We bought two more bookshelves last weekend (the two in the middle, not that it matters) and brought down the two that were in our bedroom.  Those two are on the opposite wall from these.  They’re all 100% full and I’m using three shelves of the bookshelf to the right of the TV in the other room (that used to be the living room).  The four bookshelves in the library (which used to be the dining room) have been emptied of fiction and are slowly being filled with non-fiction books from upstairs.  I moved my little desk (which used to be Dad’s little desk) into the bay window in the library so there would be room for another shelf in the dining room.  Got all that?  There might be a quiz.

Now for the compromise, since as I mentioned the other day, I’m not completely sure I like having all the books forced into a line.  (Where are their souls?  Down with conformity!)  Tell me what you think.

If I had another wine rack, I wouldn't need to do this. But I kinda like it.

They’re not the greatest pictures (I’m not the greatest photographer, to say the least), but you get the idea.  The only thing I’m not crazy about is how the books behind the vases and the pictures and the bottles of wine are hidden.   I know they’re there, but the casual browser (because so many of those come waltzing through my home – this is somehow not a real concern now that I’m writing it down) does not.

Do you like it?  Do you hate it?  Indifferent?  That seems most likely.

The duplicates. All 54 of them. Anyone craving a copy of The Mote in God's Eye?

Roxy is mad at me because I’m making her wear a sock again.  I noticed last night that she was obsessively licking one of her rear paws, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it when I checked it out, and it didn’t seem to be hurting her, so I left it alone.  Then this morning I heard the licking noise again (horrible noise), and when I got her head away from the paw, I could see that she’d managed to lick ALL OF THE FUR off two of her toes.  It’s kind of gross.  And again, except for the hairless part, nothing looks weird, nothing looks irritated, there’s nothing stuck in her paw….her nails could use a trim, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what’s bothering her.  So I wrestled her into a sock and used electrical tape to hold it on.  Now she’s pouting.

Riley is jealous because Roxy got to sit in my lap while I put the sock on her.  All Riley has ever wanted is to be a lap dog.  All 80 pounds of him.

It’s already sad that Borders is going out of business, but who would have guessed they’d be funny about it?

John pointed it out to me the last time we were there, clearing out the science fiction section.  (Well, that part was only me – I’m why you can’t find any of the books you’ve been looking for.  Sorry.)  But really, it’s great that invisibility cloaks are 20% off, but what’s to stop you from just grabbing one and running?  Other than the obvious.

This seemed really funny to me at the time, but now I can’t decide if it’s funny or if I’m just an idiot.  Let’s start with the part where I look good.

Yesterday morning, I ran 8 miles.

Please applaud now.  By the time you get to the end of the story, you may want to pretend you don’t know me.

The first half was really really hard, but I felt really good the whole second half.  I’d like to think that was partly because I didn’t feel loose and warmed up until I was well into my third mile, but I’m sure it was mostly because the last four miles were all downhill.  There was something weird going on with my right foot, though.  It felt like it was asleep half the time, all pins and needles, concentrated behind my toes and around the ball of my foot.  Other times, I could feel this weird rubbing pain along the outside of my big toe.  All in my right foot.  I kept wiggling my toes and trying to lean towards the outer right side while running, but it wasn’t really getting better.  Weird, a little worrisome, but with a little adjustment I could get by.  I figured I’d take a closer look when I got home.  I changed my stride a bit, headed back downhill, and kinda forgot about it for a while.  Later, I was stretching in the kitchen, and when I bent down to reach for my toes (I’d say I was touching my toes, but my whole life I’ve never been able to do that and I’d hate to lie to you), I noticed something a little off.

Look closely.  Do those look like the same shoe to you?  No?  Yeah.  They’re not.

The shoe on my left foot is one half of my current running pair.  The shoe on my right foot is not.  I stopped running in that pair of shoes at least 9 months ago, if not more, because they were shot.  It hurt to run in them.  That certainly explains the weird pains and pins and needles in my right foot only.  And now I feel like an idiot.  I ran 8 miles in two different shoes and I DIDN’T NOTICE.  Except I kinda did.  Kinda.  In my defense, we got up very early and it was overcast and gloomy and we didn’t turn the light on in the bedroom and hey, come on, they look a LOT alike.

But not that alike.  I guess it could have been worse.  At least I had one right shoe and one left shoe and I wore them on the correct feet.  John says I should even it out by running another 8 miles wearing the opposite shoe from each pair.  John thinks he’s pretty funny.  I will make sure my retired running shoes find a new home.  Far away from my current running shoes.  This will not happen again.

Baltimore is not close.  Not during rush hour.  Not in the middle of the week.  Did we go and have a really good time (once we got there)?  Of course we did.  We saw U2.  How could that not be a good time?  It’s gotta be one of the longest tours ever, though.  We saw them almost two years ago – same album, same tour.  This show might have been better than that one, though.  They still had the whole crowd singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and that was still awesome (maybe a little awesome-er), and they still have the weird alien monster/spaceship stage set thingy.

Our seats were as far away from the stage as you could get and still be in the stadium.  I could barely pick each band member out on the stage.  Good thing the alien overlords brought giant screens with them.  It sounded incredible, though.  I love when I can feel the drums and bass in my chest and under my feet.

I liked how they did “Beautiful Day” this time around.  The giant screen showed pictures of Earth from space, and Bono said they were dedicating the song to Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and then the camera switched to a video of her husband, the astronaut, while he was actually out in space about a month ago.  He introduced the song with floaty cue cards (normal cue cards, but he was in space, so on with the floating), and then Bono started singing and it was really cool (I like that song a lot).  During the part near the end (“See the world in green and blue, see China right in front of you…”), Bono was singing those lines under Mr. Congresswoman Astronaut Mission Commander’s spoken version.  I liked it.

Later, I don’t remember during which song, the alien invader shot beams of light into space.  I can only assume it was contacting the mothership.  We’ll have to keep an eye on the skies for a little while.

They played for about two hours, and it took us another hour or so to get back to the car, and then we waited for almost 20 minutes in the drive-thru of the worst McDonald’s in Maryland just to get some fries and caffeine so we’d make it back home.  Otherwise, the trip home was pretty easy, relatively quick, and we were asleep by 2:30.  And up at 8.  I’m TIRED.  I don’t do the middle of the night well anymore.

John, looking a little like Jack Nicholson here, does his best to hide his frustration at the traffic.

Every picture I tried to take once it got dark came out really bad, so there’s no point sharing them.  We ran into a guy I knew in college (he was in ROTC with me) while standing in the Will Call line to get our tickets.  We were never really friends, just acquaintances, and this is the second time we’ve run into each other in three or four years.  Once at the mall in Tysons, and once in Baltimore.  Neither of us lives anywhere near either of those places.  Maybe the universe is telling us we should be friends.  That would be easier if we’d exchanged any information at all.  Not something I’ll lose any sleep over.  I don’t have any sleep to lose.

It was a good concert, we had a good time, and I’m glad we went.  Even if I do have circles under my eyes so dark they could be mistaken for that black paint they put on football players to cut down on the glare.  (That’s why they do that, right?  Not to look scarier?)  I’m putting Baltimore up there with FedEx Field on the list of places I won’t go for a concert unless it’s for someone REALLY good.  The traffic, the parking, the whole tedious hassle of getting there and back – it’s got to be worth it.  I think U2 was worth it.  Ask me again in a few days, after I’ve slept.

No, it was worth it.  Not because it was U2.  I like doing something.  With John.  This was a 10-hour round trip, nonstop time with John on our way to and from seeing one of his favorite bands of all time.  I’d do it again.  But I’ll plan to take the next day off work.

A few months ago, I made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation, and they mailed me trees.  Trees by mail.  Trees by mail that fit in my mailbox.  Seriously tiny trees.  Sticks.  I’m going completely on faith that the twigs I pulled out of what looks like the plastic sleeve your newspaper gets delivered in when it’s raining will grow into trees.  We planted kindling in the ground.

It has leaves! It lives! I think it's a crabapple. And it's only four inches tall.

If you look carefully, you can see a stick inside that cage. That one might grow up to be a golden raintree, whatever that is.

Roxy likes to eat sticks, so I put fences around the 8 trees we planted in the backyard to try to keep her away. It's mostly working.

In other news, Candy completed a triathlon yesterday.  (She’s completely insane.  Awesomely insane.)  She swam 1.2 miles, biked 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles yesterday, in under six hours (which is better than average because, of course, she’s better than average.  WAY better.).  Does this news inflame every competitive instinct I have?  If she can do it, I can do it?

Not really, no.  She’s wonderful (and batshit crazy, clearly), and I will leave the Ironman (which I’m sure is next on her to-do list) to her.

What is this sign telling me to do?

Should I wait?  Should I walk?  Break into song?  (Either “Stop! In the Name of Love” or “Walk Like a Man” would be acceptable here.  Maybe “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”.)  Should I look both ways and dash across the street if no cars are coming?

How are the citizens of New Orleans not in a state of constant bewilderment?  Stop!  I mean, go!  I mean, gah!  Get over here and don’t forget my drink!  Ah.  The sign has been drinking.  I knew the truth would come out.  It is right across the street from the casino.  It’s broke AND drunk.

Seriously, though, is it broken?  Or is it supposed to do that because of the Street Car Signal sign next to it?  Is it telling the street car to stop so pedestrians can cross the street?  Seems likely, but how is the pedestrian supposed to know that?  And what does it look like when pedestrians have to stop but the street car can go?  And isn’t streetcar one word?

My head is spinning.  Like a record, baby, right round, round, round.

That sign reminds me of this sign (had to comb through The Daily What to find it again).

Is it common knowledge that rosemary plants have flowers?  I discovered this yesterday.  My only surviving herb (except for something that looks like grass and could be lemongrass or chives, maybe, but doesn’t smell like anything) is doing very nicely, thank you.

The rest kinda, um, died when I left them out on the deck the whole winter.

In case you were wondering, The Runaways?  Not a good movie.  It had no point.  And The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was just strange.  But Brad Pitt is NICE to look at (when he’s his own age, of course).

Last thing: the color of Cate Blanchett’s hair in that movie is what I was aiming for (and missed by so so much) when I dyed mine three summers ago.  If I were to ever try again, I’d go for that.  Maybe a tiny bit darker.

I’m back home, where spring has sprung, but it’s not warm enough for me.  Not after a week of mid-70s in New Orleans.  Not after only needing a jacket late at night on my way home a jazz club.  And speaking of weather and jazz and awesomeness, if I hadn’t made notes during the week, I wouldn’t know where to begin.  Since I did, I’ll begin at the beginning.

I got to New Orleans Saturday afternoon and made it to my hotel.  Pretty straightforward.  Finding my room after that was not so simple.  I was in Building 2 (or was it Building B?), which is up an escalator, up another escalator, across the breezeway, forward and then around to the left, past the gift shop that wasn’t open even ONCE the whole week, up an elevator, down a hall, and around another corner.  The gym (which I faithfully visited every morning except for the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days), was back the way I’d come in and then another half-mile in the opposite direction from the front desk and up four floors.  It was a workout just to get there.

Everyone else (Mom, Dad, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and Gaby – we were only missing John and Mark) got there a few hours later, and after dinner, Mindy, Corey, Candy, and I headed to Bourbon Street.  That was…something.  I may not have been in the right mood.  Crowded, loud, dirty.  We wound our way through throngs of girls in short prom dresses, frat boys, and vomit.  We did find a Dixieland band playing in a bar, though (Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub – beware the link if your speakers are on: music starts playing as soon as you land on the page).  That was cool.  Something I learned (although not that night): many musicians would rather you didn’t call it Dixieland.  Traditional New Orleans Jazz is the preferred term.

The next morning (Sunday – it was a beautiful morning), we had brunch at Brennan’s.  I could do that every week.  You’d have to roll me home every week, but WOW.  Loved the place, loved the strawberries and cream, LOVED the bananas foster and crepes fitzgerald.  My entree was meh, but everyone else’s was reallyreally good, and I tried them all.  From there, we hopped the streetcar to the Garden District (after changing into our UK gear – Go CATS!).  Those houses are amazing.

Detour to talk about the weather.  It was so warm.  SO warm.  And breezy, and wonderful, and WARM.  All the windows (big windows) on the streetcar were open and it felt so nice.  /detour

A little after 4pm (game time!), we hopped off the streetcar and Corey and Candy asked a nice stranger where we might be able to find a sports bar.  You can’t run around during March Madness with your UK gear on and NOT watch the game.  He sent us to one a couple of blocks away, practically empty, except for three people together at the bar and maybe another guy.  Just after halftime, one of the three at the bar walked by our table on her way back to her seat.  She was wearing a UK shirt, too, and Corey high-fived her.  Mindy and I looked at each other.  She looked really familiar to both of us, but it’s a little ridiculous of us to assume we know everyone in the world wearing a UK shirt, right?  Well, right, except not in this case.  I went over to ask her.  “Are you from [town redacted]?”  “Yes.”  “Did you go to [high school redacted]?”  “Zannah?”  So, yeah, we went to high school together, had friends in common (loyal commenter IBCRandy, among others), remembered each other vaguely, but enough.  Totally weird.  She lives in the neighborhood we were in.  What are the odds?  The stars aligned for me this whole trip, but more on that in another post (or three).  So that was cool.  And UK won, which was also cool.  Too bad they couldn’t keep that up.

Dad, Corey, Candy, and Gaby all left on Monday (after breakfast at the Cafe du Monde, where we watched Gaby wallow in powdered sugar), and I went to work for a few hours.  I came back to find Mom and Mindy waiting in my room (it was kind of sad to come back after work the next day and have no one to meet me).  Mindy made an inspired dinner decision (I think it was her choice), and we went to the Grapevine Wine Bar.  No live music, but the wine made up for that.  We killed three bottles and ate appetizers (scallops, beef medallions, cheese and crackers, baked brie, and something else…mussels!) and skipped dessert.  Partly because who needs dessert after three bottles of wine, and partly because fudge cheese didn’t sound particularly appetizing.  I’m not making that up.

On our tipsy way back to the hotel after dinner, we met a three-man a capella group on the corner somewhere along Decatur and sang with them.  Met some people on the way back home (all new friends), and then Mom and Mindy left the next morning (Tuesday).  Tuesday night is when my solo adventures started, and I’ll get into them tomorrow.  I’m typed out.

Why so many title pages?  This book has THREE.

First

Second

Third

They’re all in a row, one after the other, and that’s not even counting the page before the FIRST title page that basically works like the back of the dust jacket, with the title and author AGAIN (and a short bio).  I don’t understand.  Why so many?  Does Random House think I’m going to forget what book I just picked up? Every one and a half seconds?

I don’t get it.  But I do think Random House is a cool name for a company.  Maybe I’ll call my bookstore Random Books.  Or Random Reads.  Random Readers.  Random Shop.  Maybe just Random.  Maybe not.

Wanna see the worst haircut I’ve ever gotten?  I hated it.  It was the summer after my freshman year in college.  I was going for a pixie cut, something really short, something I’d never done before (and have never tried since), but that Mom and Mindy do really well.  If they can do it, I can, right?  Maybe I wasn’t clear enough with the stylist.  She gave me something that looked kinda like Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell in Hook.  With a mullet.

With a mullet. And not so many layers, I think. I don't remember. I've blocked it out.

It was awful.  I got home, cried, and went somewhere else the next day to try to get it fixed.  Which wasn’t really possible.  So I hated my hair that whole summer.  I recently came across a picture of me from later that summer, and while I still don’t think it’s a good haircut, I don’t think it was quite as bad as it seemed at the time.

It’s not something I’d do again, though.

And to bribe you into saying nice things about this old picture of me (or at least non-commital not-mean things), here’s Mr. Toad.

Day 4 in Wales was Sunday, I think, January 2nd.  Since we’d already had some issues with things being closed due to the holiday, we assumed Sunday wouldn’t be any different and switched our castle plans (we always have castle plans) for outdoorsy-type activities.  Like hiking along Offa’s Dyke.  Of course, our travel guides didn’t say how to get to Offa’s Dyke (which is a very long trail along the English-Welsh border that passes near our village somewhere), so we asked Carl (the go-to guy while our landlords were away). Got his directions (which were quite vague: “Follow the lane out to the road, then go straight.”  It sounds straightforward, but there wasn’t really an option that was clearly “straight” when we got to the road.  And he left out the “veer right when you get to the fork” that would have been helpful later on), set off, and finally found the path (marked with acorn signs) about a mile from the cottage. (Once we found the path, we were set.) So we started hiking. And hiking. And climbing. Up and up and up. Spectacular views, better and better the higher we got. We’d warm up from the exertion, then stop to take pictures and start shivering again. We climbed all the way to the top of a mountain, and I stopped some people coming back down to ask them the name of it. I’d like to know what mountains I climb. I’ll add it to my list. My growing list of all of two mountains now. He struggled a bit, but came up with Penrhyddion (I’m guessing at the spelling, but I’m pretty sure I’m right – pronounce the two d’s in the middle like th), which I haven’t been able to find listed as a mountain on Google. I’ll keep looking. After taking lots of pictures from the top (we were so high there was a light dusting of snow!), we headed back down. All in all, we hiked about four hours. Came back to the cottage, the bottoms of our boots caked in mud, had some tea and biscuits, cleaned up, and went looking for dinner. Every pub that says they serve food on the sign outside is a liar. We went into one that clearly said they serve food, but when I asked, no, they don’t. We had a pint anyway and met some very friendly people (a guy who lived in Houston when he was a teenager who came away from the experience with a dislike of Texas and another guy, drunk, who called himself the local idiot) with lots of advice on how to spend our next few days.

Oh, we saw sheep, too.  Lots of sheep.  Honestly, the castles we did end up seeing were totally cool, but I think this was my favorite day.

View from our cottage of where we were headed

The path was clearly marked, once we found it. John wants to know why the acorn is upside down.

These narrow lanes are not much fun in the dark.

I'd like a door like this in my yard someday. Leading to my secret garden. Maybe the gate should be wrought iron.

John climbing over an honest-to-goodness stile

Check this out - a gate for the dogs who can't get over the stile!

In case you weren't sure what it was for.

View from level one, back towards the village and our cottage

Any idea which way to go now?

Sheep!

Bracken!

I think one of the small hill gods lives here.

Sheep for Jess

View from a bit higher up (but not the top, not yet)

Mountains we didn't climb. At least not that day.

Damn, we took a lot of pictures on this hike.  I’m skipping to the end.  When John posts all of our pictures in his gallery, I’ll point you there.

The top! See that white stuff on the ground? Mm-hm. Snow.

I think that town is Denbigh. Hard to say, though.

I may or may not have been dancing in circles while singing songs from The Sound of Music. You'll never know for sure.

Let’s see…if Day 2 (in Chester) was New Year’s Eve, that makes Day 3 New Year’s Day.  We’d stayed up until midnight the night before but not doing anything crazy, so what few plans we’d made for the day started with a run.  Of course, when the alarm went off at 7 and it was still pitch black outside, we decided to put it off. Looked again at 7:30 – still very dark. (No streetlights, no houselights = very dark.) We finally got up at 8 (skipped the run), showered (Have I mentioned the shower?  Stand-up shower, pretty small (barely enough room to turn around in), but it had great water pressure and a wide showerhead so you were pretty much under the spray no matter where you stood.  Quite nice.), and headed north and west to look for breakfast.  Yeah, nothing’s open on New Year’s Day. At least, not in the morning. We stopped at a Sainsbury’s (supermarket) and noticed a small crowd of people waiting outside.  NOT OPEN.  It was a couple of minutes before ten, so we joined the waiters on the assumption that the store would open at ten.  They opened a few minutes after ten, but close enough, so we picked up some croissants and a couple of bottles of water and ate a flaky breakfast in the car.  Kept driving west.  We didn’t have any solid plans.  We just kept driving to see what we could see.  We saw a high stone wall that looked like it surrounded a park, so  we pulled off the main road and headed down one side looking for a way in.  Didn’t find it, but we did see a sign and some steps climbing the hill into the woods.

Can’t you just see them beckoning?  There was a golf club just down the road, so we pulled into their parking lot, reached for hats and gloves and cameras, and then it started pouring down rain.  (It had only been misting before.)  Our Welsh weather gods were nice to us, though.  We waited a couple of minutes and the rain settled back into a light mist again.  We started climbing.  There were a lot more stairs then we expected, so we kept climbing.  Eventually, we got to the top of that hillside and came out on a wide track – practically a road.  Left or right?  Left went uphill, so we did, too.  First clearing:

This is where we came from

That's where we could have gone

And this is where we did go. Road less traveled, right? We're adventurers!

But before I move on up the trail, here’s the view (part of it) from the first clearing.

A little gray, a little misty

Back to the trail.  Not long after we left the clearing, our road narrowed down to a path wide enough for only one person with not much between the edge and a probably very painful tumble down the mountainside.

Guess where that path led?

More steps! Substantially more slippery than the first set.

So up we went.  Path path path, trail trail trail, and voila!  The top!

Not as impressive as we were hoping for.

It was a clearing with two mound-type little hills (Druid burial grounds, right?).  Whatever, it was the top.  There was a path across from the one we used to come in, but it looked like it was just heading to an overlook with the same view we’d already taken pictures of, so we didn’t go.

Haunted, I think.

Speaking of haunted, this next clearing-type place in the woods with lots of leaves (is it a clearing if it’s still got trees?  They’re widely spaced, but still…) looks like it was used in every movie ever made.  Blair Witch, Holy Grail, Stardust, other movies with scenes in woods…

We stopped at the same place on the way back down to get a few more pictures since the mist had cleared a little.

We were on the north shore of Wales - that's the bay.

Waves crashing on Wales

Back down the steps…

A bit more treacherous going down than up

and back to the car.  We went back to the main road and were following the stone wall when all of a sudden I heard John: “Holy shit!”  “Oh my god, what?”  I nearly drove off the road.  Yeah, he got a glimpse of this over that stone wall:

I followed that stone wall as far around as I could, but we couldn’t find a way in.  We saw one entryway, but it was marked private.  It’s not possible that that’s a private castle, right?  We must have been missing something obvious.  I pulled over so we could take pictures.  Of course.  (Click on them – they get bigger.)

We think we might have been able to hike there, if we’d gone right instead of left at the beginning and hiked for another three hours.  After we took our pictures of Totally Awesome Castle #1, we got back in the car, still heading west, and looked for lunch.  We stopped in a likely-looking town, parked the car on the main street, found a couple of cafes (all closed) and went into the first pub we saw.  Open, yes, but not serving food.  I asked the guy if anyone was serving food today.  He listed two places, both nearby.  We went into the first place (a pub called Prince Madog, I think).  Open, not serving food.  The barman said they’d have a great Sunday roast (tomorrow), and the only place he knew of that was open was this other pub around the corner.  We went there.  Open, serving food.  Finally.  We were hungry.  This place was HUGE.  Three or four levels, definitely a pub with pub food, but a layout more like a restaurant with the highest level of tables on a gallery overlooking the next level.  Food was okay.  We saw another pub owned by the same company a couple of days later; we think they’re the equivalent of TGI Friday’s.  Anyway, they were open and that’s all that mattered.  We had a pint and some lunch and gave up on finding anything else open on New Year’s Day.  Almost gave up.  On our way back we stumbled on Bodelwyddan Castle (which looks AWESOME).  The sign at the entrance said it was closed, but the gate was open, so we drove in anyway.  There’s a hotel attached to the castle, but when I went in and asked if the castle would be open for tours soon, they said it’s only open on Sundays and Saturdays and not at all that weekend.  So yeah.  Not open.  No castles for us.  We drove back to Denbigh (the town closest to our village).  It was getting dark, so we wandered around a bit, found that the takeaways all opened at five (it was about 4:30), and hiked up the road to the castle to pass the time. (Denbigh has a castle.)  COOL castle. Was it open?  Of course not.  Closed for excavation or something, so it didn’t even open up later in the week.  I took some terrible pictures of it in the dark that night, and then we picked up some Indian takeaway, watched the second Daniel Craig Bond movie (bought the DVD at Sainsbury’s that morning), and I took a long bath in our GIANT bathtub with the vanilla-scented bath bomb Emily bought me for Christmas.  It fizzed as it dissolved and turned the bathwater yellow-ish green.  Very exciting.